Some changes have been made in the way fire departments are being dispatched in Starke County with the way medical calls are being handled and a meeting is scheduled for tonight to explain some of those changes.

Dave Pearman from the Washington Township Fire Department said the process is being streamlined.

“There were Post-it notes that were covering the monitors in our 911 dispatch office and we looked within the fire service and within emergency services altogether and asked ourselves what could we change about that?” stated Pearman.

The crippled Starke County Sheriff’s Department radio tower is still causing trouble for the county, as a number of fire departments noted issues at the county council meeting last night. The department in Oregon Township has been experiencing issues with communications, causing a number of pages to not be received or suffer from static problems.

Mark Allen, trustee for Oregon Township, told the council that he received a quote for a system that had been suggested by an expert. The system, he explained, is a “record-and-repeat” system that would allow them to receive the pages sent out by county dispatch. The problem stems from last year’s storms in June and July that nearly toppled the tower, resulting in a shorter tower and, consequently, a shorter range for signals.

One of the more exciting local races in the 2008 Starke County General Election involved commissioner candidates Kathy Norem and Mark Allen. Both were attempting to fill a vacant seat on the board and 9,223 votes were cast in that specific race. At the end of the night, Norem, a Republican, edged Democrat Allen by 73 votes.